Analysis | To beat Trump, 2024 White House hopeful DeSantis needs to build an unwieldy coalition
- Florida Governor Ron DeSantis will announce on Wednesday that he is running for US president, ending months of speculation
- Behind Donald Trump in polling, DeSantis would need pull supporters away from the Republican front runner to secure nomination
If Ron DeSantis hopes to defeat Donald Trump and win the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, he will ultimately have to bring every possible anti-Trump voter he can into the fold. But even that likely will not be enough, political analysts say.
DeSantis will also have to pull some supporters away from Trump – and that could make for a tricky balancing act that DeSantis is already struggling with.
“You can’t court MAGA while courting the rest of the party,” said Chris Stirewalt, a Republican analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, referring to Trump’s diehard supporters in his Make America Great Again movement. “That’s a difficult decision he is going to have to make.”
The Florida governor plans to announce his presidential bid on Wednesday after months of speculation. With deep financial resources and a growing national profile, DeSantis will quickly become Trump’s top rival in the race.
But he will have much work to do: Reuters/Ipsos polling conducted this month showed Trump backed by 49 per cent of Republicans and DeSantis 19 per cent.
DeSantis’ initial challenge is that the anti-Trump field is fractured. Nikki Haley, Trump’s former ambassador to the United Nations, and Tim Scott, a US senator from South Carolina, among others, are already in the race, with more candidates such as Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, perhaps to follow.